


A Sacrifice Recovering

by Longpig



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, F/M, Injury Recovery, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 04:45:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11456280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Longpig/pseuds/Longpig
Summary: Zarkon's body is broken after the battle with Voltron. Luckily, his recovery is in good hands.





	A Sacrifice Recovering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aretia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aretia/gifts).



There was no pain, not at first. Only cold. Numbness. Sensation withdrew from his extremities, limbs, core, until only the cold remained. The cold, and the darkness. He was adrift, floating trapped inside a broken shell. Alone, defeated, and so very tired. The battle was finished. After ten thousand years, it was all over. His consciousness began to fade, and he felt himself sliding inexorably towards an icy oblivion. 

Something warm brushed his face; the familiar touch pulled him back from the brink of the void. Soft, small hands slid over his head, pulling away his ruined helmet.

“ _ Zarkon... _ ” A voice, barely a whisper. Then, louder: “ _ Aid your Emperor! _ ”

He drifted again, but now it did not seem quite so cold.

\-----

He did not know how long he had been out. When he forced his eyes open, the world was a luminescent purple haze. Now,  _ now _ there was pain, bone-deep and crushing. His whole body was a raw nerve. At length he realized that the light was coming from a myriad of tubes hanging above him, forcing distilled quintessence into his shattered body. The sheer volume of it, under other circumstances, would have thrilled him with its power. Now it was agony. He tried to move -- growled at the effort -- but found that he could not.

A face coalesced out  of the violet glow. Gleaming golden eyes set in slate blue skin; sharp features, curiously softened.  _ Haggar _ . Relief flooded through him, dulling the pain, at least for a moment. Her presence meant safety, security. It meant  _ home _ .

“You should not be conscious yet,” she murmured. How dire must his condition be for her to look at him that way? He wanted to call out to her, to reach out and touch her, but still his body refused to obey. She leaned over him, perhaps sensing his frustration. Her slender fingers brushed across the ridges of his forehead, a simple gesture of affection and reassurance. “Sleep now.” A tingling warmth spread through him, and he did.

\-----

When he awoke again, the room was dark, the glow of quintessence absent. As he adjusted to the low light, he realized that he was in his own quarters, in his own bed. The shift was somewhat disorienting -- time had slipped out of his grasp. It could have been quintents, or even decaphebes since he’d last opened his eyes. He decided that it could not have been so very long though, if he was still aboard his own ship.

As his mind cleared, he focused his attention on his physical condition. He carefully lifted each of his limbs in turn, relieved to find himself more or less intact. Everything ached in a way that made him feel every year of his age, but at least he was able to move.

As he continued his experimental exercises, something stirred on the bed beside him. He turned his head to the side, and two yellow embers looked back. Haggar was so slight that he had mistaken her robed form for a pile of rucked-up bedclothes in the darkness. 

“You’re awake.” She pushed herself up on her elbow, letting her hood fall back from her face. “How do you feel?”

“Old,” he rumbled, looking back up at the ceiling again. Haggar sat up and leaned over him, frowning with concern. She pulled back the sheet that covered his body, running her hands over scars new and old until she was satisfied that nothing was amiss. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that he was nude, and now he wondered just how he had gotten here. He grimaced at the thought of the druids, or worse, his own men seeing him so vulnerable.

“I moved you myself,” she said. After so long together, she knew how to read even the slightest twitch of his jaw.

“Thank you,” he sighed. He reached out to cup her face in his hand. His arm felt impossibly heavy, but the way that she leaned into his touch was worth the effort. “I can always rely on you.”

Haggar clasped both of her hands over his, and turned her face toward his palm. “I was afraid I’d lost you,” she murmured against his wrist. Memories of the battle with Voltron whirled in his mind. The rush of adrenalin when it seemed that victory was within his grasp. Shock and indignation when the Black Lion committed her final treason, enabling the Champion to steal  _ his _ bayard. Searing pain as the sword tore through him, then blazed with the black bayard’s power.

“The universe is not so easily rid of me.” He felt, more than saw, the smile that ghosted across her lips.

“Indeed.”

“And what is Voltron’s status now?”

Haggar pulled his hand away, and folded his arm down across his chest. She scowled, her eyes narrowed. “Forget about Voltron -- for now,” she amended, before he could disagree. “You are not yet recovered,” she said, more gently, stroking the back of his hand. “You need rest.” Another time, he might have brushed aside her concern, but the throbbing weariness in his bones could not be argued with.

“Who commands the fleet, then?” It was as much an accession as a question.

“You know who,” she sighed.

“Hmm.”

“It’s a temporary measure.”

“He is not ready,” he complained.

“And you are?” She rested a hand, light as a bird, on the side of his face, the tenderness of her touch softening her words. He grumbled a token protest, but they both knew there was nothing in it. He was already tired from their discussion, his eyelids growing heavy again. “There is nothing he can foul up so badly that we cannot set it right when you are well.” Haggar laid down next to him, and tucked herself under his arm, curling her doll-like body around his larger frame. “Nothing we cannot conquer,” she continued, her breath warm on his skin, “together.”

He murmured assent as his eyes drifted shut.

**Author's Note:**

> >  
>> 
>> _"There is no decent place to stand_  
>  _In a massacre;_  
>  _But if a woman take your hand_  
>  _Go and stand with her."_
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> \- Leonard Cohen, _The Captain_


End file.
